CMOS Instrumentation for Genetic Analysis Lab-on-a-Chip

One application for lab-on-a-chip (LOC) devices is performing miniaturized laboratory
tests. These devices would be ideal for point-of-care medical diagnostic
applications; however, many still rely on external bench-top instrumentation. It is
logical to shrink this instrumentation as well.
In this dissertation we discuss a mixed-signal CMOS implementation of the
instrumentation for a genetic analysis LOC. Many genetic analysis methods rely
on the detection of faint fluorescent signals and the use of high voltages. For this
reason, special attention is given to the design of the photodiode amplifiers and
analog-to-digital converter in a 5V/300V 800nm CMOS process.
As part of this work, we have demonstrated a 2nd-order delta-sigma modulator
with a bandwidth of 1.2kHz, and an SNR of 78dB. Also, we present a novel
differential fluorescent detection scheme for capillary electrophoresis that uses two
photodiodes to dynamically remove the baseline signal caused by excitation light.

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